Cannibals in Love by Mike Roberts Read Free Book Online

understand it. I agreed with her, even. Everything would have to change after this.
    We got out of the pool and we didn’t kiss again that night. We stayed up and rode around for hours, not to go home. I left Lauren at her doorstep, giddy with sleeplessness and not making sense. And then I didn’t see her again for three days.
    *   *   *
    The first day was mine. I had spent every day of the last four weeks with Lauren and Cokie, and it scared me a little. I felt like I’d lost my equilibrium. There’s something incestuous in that kind of platonic closeness: brothers and sisters left alone too long.
    The second day was Lauren’s. I eventually gave up and tried to call her, but she never called me back. I didn’t really understand what was happening then. Had I rejected Lauren, or was she rejecting me? I brooded over this at work, the whole third day, until Cokie called and said to meet them out at the bar.
    I felt stupid for worrying so much. Everything was fine. I thought I wanted Lauren to say something about it to me, but she didn’t. We were out in a larger group, and she seemed to float at the fringes. And maybe this was the right thing, too.
    Later, after people started to leave, she slid beside me in the booth, which was nice. We began to talk, but there was tension there, and we stopped. It was in this silence that she started doing something false—pulling at my hair and telling me it was too long. She jagged her fingers through, trying to make it hurt.
    â€œI just think you should cut it,” she said.
    â€œI don’t wanna cut it,” I told her. “Why are you being so weird?”
    â€œI’m not being weird ,” Lauren said with a laugh. “I just wanna cut it. I’m good, too. You would like it.” She smiled at the other people around the table. “I promise.”
    I looked at her and tried to figure out what this was. “All right,” I said, “If that’s what you want. I’ll take the Rachel- cut. Do you still do that one?”
    â€œOr the George Clooney!” Cokie snarked. “God, remember how stupid the George Clooney one was?” People laughed, and Lauren smirked, and we all let it go.
    But outside the bar, she tried to hold me to it. She was really going to cut my hair, she said. I didn’t know what to say to this, and finally just gave up. We said goodbye to Cokie and the kids, and we rode our bikes to Lauren’s house.
    *   *   *
    We sat in the kitchen with her roommate, drinking beer, and I really expected this to be the end of it. But Lauren tipped her can over in the sink, and smiled at me all over again. So I followed her up the stairs to the bathroom, where she set out a chair. And, all at once, as I looked at us in the mirror, I did want her to cut my hair.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “I trust you.”
    â€œShut up,” she said. “You’ll be fine, I swear.”
    Lauren got very serious then, as she combed through my hair with her fingers and pulled away pieces to cut. Snip, snip, pull, pull, we caught each other’s eyes in the reflection. There was something charged and intimate happening. Lauren touched my neck and pressed her chest to the back of my head as she worked. We stared at each other in the glass, without speaking, and she laughed.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œSo keep cutting.”
    â€œYou just have really nice hair, you know that? It’s soft and thick,” she said, smiling at me in the mirror.
    â€œThen why won’t you let me grow it out?”
    â€œJust hold still.” Lauren snarled and took a big swatch off the top of my head, without hesitating. The pieces fell across my shoulders and onto the floor. The inexactness of this cut made my neck tingle. She stopped again, considering the flying hair.
    â€œMaybe you should take your shirt off,” she said.
    And I did, and that was it. The